


The Next Me

by dragonwings948



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Episode: s12e01 Spyfall Part 1, Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, Friendship, Memories, Parallels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22259695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwings948/pseuds/dragonwings948
Summary: Parallels between Missy and Twelve & Dhawan and Thirteen.
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan), Twelfth Doctor & Missy
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I think it’s really unlikely that they’ll make Dhawan’s incarnation be before Missy, but I’m really hoping they’ll still do it because it would make so much sense and I’m upset about Missy, okay? 
> 
> Until then, have some feels because I’m emotional.

A piano sonata filled the small room. In the back of his mind, the Doctor identified it as a Mozart in A major. 

_Not a bad idea, Mozart._ He contemplated how he could relate the famous composer’s works to the theory of relativity in his upcoming lecture. He scribbled the idea on a notepad, his sloppy penmanship unable to keep up with the rapidity of his thoughts. 

The music stopped in the middle of a run. The Doctor paused and glanced over at the piano. Missy leaned an arm across the place where one would have put sheet music if one hadn’t spent the past year committing every Classical piano piece to memory. 

“Do you ever think about how all of this could be for nothing?” 

The Doctor set down his pen. Even from this far away he could see the look in Missy’s eyes that was starting to become familiar; it was a look that meant she was thinking like him. 

“You’re doing fine,” the Doctor assured her. “You’ve made progress.” 

She half-rolled her eyes, like a teenager talking back to her parents. “I know _I’m_ different. Being trapped in a box for hundreds of years does that to you,” she added with a note of sarcasm. 

The Doctor looked down at his notes. The last thing he wanted was to keep her trapped; he wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, especially someone so much like him. But for now, it was necessary. Maybe, in time, once he was sure about her…

“But what about the next me?” Missy’s right hand went to the piano keys, continuing the sonata at half-tempo. “You know better than anyone that regeneration can be unlucky; just look at your sixth body.” 

Missy’s words provoked the Doctor’s thoughts too much for him to be offended by the jab. (Besides, his sixth self _had_ been a bit of an odd one, anyway.)

“You’re afraid you’ll go back to the way you were?” the Doctor asked, trying to understand her. 

“I’m not _afraid.”_ The music sped up and her other hand joined in. “Just stating a fact.” 

The Doctor tapped his pen against the notepad. She did have a point. He considered for a moment how much it would pain him to see her revert back to her carelessly murdering self after she’d come so far. 

He shook his head and went back to his notes. “Then let’s hope you don’t regenerate for a very long time.” 

* * *

It’s not his words that reveal it to her. It’s not the triumphant grin, or even the unveiling of his elaborate plot. 

It’s his eyes. 

The Doctor knows it’s him because it hurts, down to her very hearts. She sees the eyes of her oldest friend, of Missy, and they’re not familiar at all. 

All of that work. All of that goodness undone, right in front of her eyes. 

She wants to ask him what’s happened to him to make him like this, to plead with him to remember what they went through. 

But his plan leaves no time for them to talk. Maybe that’s the point. 

She finds herself helpless, just like every time she’s been caught off guard by him. But there’s something distinctly different about this. She’s trapped with her friends on an aeroplane. There’s a bomb. 

And for once, there’s no clever escape. 

She keeps searching his eyes, looking for something to hope for. But Missy isn’t there. In her place is something colder and crueler than anything the Doctor has seen in a long, long time. 

“ _What about the next me?”_

The Doctor remembers the piano sonata and the fear that Missy is now proved correct in feeling. 

As the Master stands over her, the memories continue. _“Stand with me.”_

Her hearts sink as she thinks, once again, that it’s all she’s ever wanted. 


	2. Chapter 2

The last time she touched him, her hold on his hand said more than words ever could have. 

The Doctor had asked Missy to stand with him, to show who she was once and for all. She had refused. 

But as she squeezed his fingers and looked into his eyes, he knew that she wanted to—maybe just not enough. 

It was an apology. It was a wish for things to be different. It was remembering who they used to be, so long ago. 

He squeezed her hand back.  _ Don’t go.  _

__ But in the next moment his fingers were left grasping at cold air. 

He wondered if he’d ever hold her hand again. 

* * *

The first time he touches her, he clutches her throat in a death grip. 

The Master holds the Doctor over Paris, crushing her windpipe, and she remembers how Missy took her hand not all that long ago. 

His fingers apply more threatening pressure. The Doctor has no doubt he’ll kill her with his bare hands if he gets the chance. Those same hands she held when she told Missy she wanted to believe in her. 

This is a victory she doesn’t want. All she wants is for him to understand, for them to be friends again. But instead...this. 

__ _ “It’s like our Paris,”  _ she remembers Missy saying. 

_ You have no idea,  _ she thinks. 


End file.
